


When Tomorrow Comes

by Mohini



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, Terminal Illnesses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-17
Updated: 2014-04-17
Packaged: 2018-01-19 18:46:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 887
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1480144
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mohini/pseuds/Mohini
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>More than two decades together means knowing when to let go.</p>
            </blockquote>





	When Tomorrow Comes

I’ve been staring at the bottle for a long while now. The murky contents of the phial hold a deep attraction at the same time that they scare me beyond belief. It’s taken me a full lunar cycle to brew, every ingredient added at a precise stage, every stir and change in temperature a careful study in caution I never exercised in my school days. It’s strange. I learned to brew healing draughts many years ago, can do so practically in my sleep. This potion is anything but, and yet is a thousand times more complex than any of them ever were.

  
He’s sleeping in our room, his soft breathing my assurance that he is comfortable within his dreams. I’ve wondered many times in the last month what this choice will do to him. I hope it will set him free. I pray that it will give him the chance to be who he never can with me. I’ve watched him for nearly two decades as he has denied his very nature. Three children have been born to us in those years. He’s climbed the ranks of the Auror’s office, sitting at the helm of the department now. He’s finally stopped going out of raids, most of the time.

  
Our careers came first in those early days. Mine in sport, his in law, and my mother raised our boys and our little girl. She saw their first steps, heard their first words. I was never cut out to be a parent, and he was too afraid of what he had experienced as a child to allow himself to be comfortable in his own skin with them when they were small. A childhood in a cupboard leaves lasting scars, you know. I’ve often been tempted to visit his Muggle relatives, to give them just a taste of what they did to him.

  
When Jamie was a toddler, he managed to get himself stuck in a broom cupboard. My poor husband managed to free the child, but dissolved into such a panic that I’d been left no choice but to stun him and call for reinforcements. I settled Jamie into bed that night while Harry lay in the arms of another in his study, being tended to and soothed by hands that gave him more comfort than I ever could.

  
When Lily was born, Harry was away on assignment. She wasn’t due for another month, and entered the world in utter silence. I will never forget the hands that held my little girl, the hands that carefully worked life into her still body. I’d watched him with Harry so many times, each new injury and each new fear soothed and healed by slender hands and calm eyes.

  
By the time Ron arrived with Harry in tow, Lily Luna was nuzzled at my breast, taking her first meal as though nothing had been amiss at all. He had held Harry through his tears, calmed him as Harry told me he didn’t deserve to be a father if he couldn’t even manage to be at his daughter’s birth. Ron had looked at me, then at Harry, and back to me. In that moment, I knew that he was as aware as I that our relationship was naught but a fallacy that Harry was desperate to maintain.

  
A year into Al’s tenure at Hogwarts, we were summoned to the school by urgent owl, our son having fallen from his broom in a match and broken most of the bones on one side of his body. Beside his bed, a pointy chinned, silver eyed child had been waiting, holding Al’s hand and whispering comfort as the Skele-gro worked its magic. Our Slytherin son clung to his dearest friend, a boy so fierce in his determination to remain by Al’s side that he had even managed to cow Poppy Pomfrey. I knew that determination so well. I had been seeing it in the older version of that little boy for most of my life.

  
When the diagnosis came, I didn’t tell Harry. He needn’t know, I told myself. Surely magic can take care of this with ease. Six months later, I know that there are things even magic is powerless against. I went to Draco, two months ago now, and asked for a promise. With tears in his eyes, he agreed. When I am gone, my Harry will be cared for and my children will have two parents.

  
Carefully, I place the little phial into the potions cabinet. Tonight, I will lie down with my beloved husband. I will sleep against his chest one last time. Tomorrow, our children will be home from school. I have told them what awaits them. Harry knows as well. I will not linger, allowing this disease to ravage my body and create in me a shell of agony. I have told my parents what I plan. They will be here, along with my brothers and their wives and children. I have told them all what I want for Harry, what I will have for him. I will leave this life on my own terms, surrounded by those I love. I will slip through the veil safe in the knowledge that long arms are surrounding my Harry; that soft grey eyes will look into his and know his heart.


End file.
